To realize the sharing and optimization deployment of manufacturing resources, a concept of collaborative manufacturing chain (CMC) is proposed for the manufacturing of complex products in a networked manufacturing environment. To acquire the optimal CMC, a multi-objective optimization model is developed to minimize the comprehensive cost and the whole production load with time-sequence constraints. Non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) is applied to solve optimization functions. The optimal solution set of Pareto is obtained. The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) approach is then used to identify the optimal compromise solution from the optimal solution set of Pareto. Simulation results obtained in this study indicate that the proposed model and algorithm are able to obtain satisfactory solutions.